‘What place do you mean?’ Margaret said faintly.
‘Berwick, on the River Tweed. It is almost Scotland, he said. Right on the borders. It would mean moving the border a single mile, but it would please his shade and I should honour him. His lairds will think me clever if I could tell them I had won that.’
‘I’m sure they think it already,’ Margaret murmured. She was certain by then that the young woman had run the conversation exactly along the lines she wanted, but even so, the price was not too high. Losing Henry was a guilt and shame she could bear no longer, no matter what it cost. Just the thought that men like York might hurt him wrenched at her womb and stomach as if she had been kicked. Margaret dipped her head.
‘Berwick is yours, Mary. My husband would not begrudge the loss of a mile, compared to all his kingdom.’
Once more, Mary of Guelders took up her hands, holding them tight.
‘Then it is agreed. You’ll have the best fighters in Scotland to come south with you. My husband was the Clan Chief, do you understand? The word is “Clanna”, children. They were all his children and he was a fine father to them. I will pick them myself for beards and muscle and skill with a sword. You’ve made me your ally, Margaret, as if I was not before. We’ll announce the betrothal immediately. Will you sit at table with me now? I want to hear so much more of London and France.’
York could hear rain spattering against the windows of the bishop’s palace. The king’s room was lit by a fire burning low along one wall and a single lamp of copper and polished iron, placed by the king’s elbow so that he could read. Beyond the noise of the rain, the only sounds were the whisper of Henry’s hand running across paper and the gentle murmuring of his voice as he spoke the words aloud, his lips moving constantly.
They were alone. The bishop’s servants had all been sent downriver to London for the evening, escorting their master so that no one had seen York arrive and shed his dripping cloak. The main door had come open at his touch and he’d walked through empty corridors carrying his own lamp, hearing only his footsteps.
York sat by the king’s chair, facing the fire and close enough for any observer to have believed they were deep in private conversation. Though the logs burned low, the room was warm, the walls panelled in the dark gold of ancient oak. York wondered who had been king when those trees were felled. The oak planks had certainly been cut long before the Norman invasion, old even then. Athelstan? Before even him. They could have been dried and polished when the kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia had not yet been joined under a single English throne. York thought he could feel the weight of history in that room. He breathed in the odours of wax and smoke as if they were the finest incense.
A small round table sat between them, bearing a single cup, a flask of wine and a much smaller wooden bottle with a glass stopper. York’s gaze was drawn to that collection, watching the raindrops from his cloak scattered around it, gleaming the reflections of the embers, like spilled drops of gold.
The murmuring stopped and York raised his head slowly, seeing that Henry was looking at him in mild interest.
‘I know why you are here,’ Henry said suddenly. ‘I have endured this sickness, this madness for such a long time, I think whole years have been stolen from me. But I am not a fool. I was never a fool.’
York looked away, leaning further over with his elbows on his knees as he sat there, staring down at the polished wooden floor. He did not raise his head as the king spoke again.
‘Have you news of my wife and son, Richard? The servants move around me with empty faces, as if I am a ghost, as if they are all deaf. You see me though, don’t you? You hear me?’
‘I hear you, Your Majesty. I see you,’ York said in a breath. ‘Your wife and son are well, I am certain.’
‘Margaret named my boy Edward, just as you did with yours, Richard. He is a fine lad, always laughing. How old is your boy now, thirteen? Older?’
‘He is eighteen, taller than most men.’
‘Ah, I’m sorry. I have missed so much. They say a son is his father’s greatest pride, a daughter his comfort,’ Henry said. ‘I would have liked daughters, Richard, though perhaps they will come to me yet.’
York’s gaze flickered to the bottles on the table.
‘Perhaps, Your Majesty.’
‘My own father died before I could ever know him,’ Henry said, looking off across the dim gold light of the room. ‘He took no pride in me, he could not. I wish sometimes that I had known him. I wish he had known me.’
‘Your father was a great man, Your Majesty, a great king.’ York’s head drooped further. ‘If he had lived a dozen years longer, so much would be different.’
‘Yes. I would have liked to know him. Yet I must be content. I will see him again, with my mother. That brings me comfort, Richard, when the illness presses on me. There will be a day when I stand before him. I will tell him I was king, for a time. I will describe Margaret to him and my son, Edward. Will he be disappointed, Richard? I have won no wars, as he did.’ His eyes were large in the dim light, the pupils black pools of sorrow as he turned to York. ‘How will he know me? I was just a child when he died.’
‘He will know you, Majesty. He will embrace you.’
Henry yawned, looking around for the servants that were not present, and frowning.
‘It is late, Richard. I rise very early now, before the sun. I have been too long at my reading and my head is aching.’
‘Shall I pour your wine, Your Majesty?’
‘Yes, please. It helps me to sleep without dreams. I must not dream, Richard. I see such terrible things.’
York broke the wax seal on the wine and removed a paper plug, filling the cup with dark red liquid that looked black in the dim light. Henry seemed to have forgotten him, his attention drawn to the glowing embers as the fire burned down. York might as well have been alone for all he could feel the presence of the other man. Silence filled the room like warm air, thick and sluggish, as York’s hand reached for the second bottle. He flicked open the glass stopper on a tiny hinge, but he did not bring them together. Henry’s face was lit in gold and shadows, his eyes hooded as he stared into the coals.
York closed his eyes, pressing the heel of his hand against his forehead, the open bottle still held in his fingers.
He stood suddenly, startling Henry into looking up at him.
‘God be with you, Your Majesty,’ York said, his voice hoarse.
‘You will not stay with me?’ Henry asked, his gaze falling on the cup of wine.
‘I cannot. There are armies gathering in the north. Armies I must meet and break. Your servants will have returned when you wake.’
Henry took the cup and put it to his lips, tilting it high. His eyes remained on York as he drank and put it down empty.
‘I wish you fine fortune, Richard. You are a better man than they know.’
York made a rough sound in his throat, almost a cry of pain. He swept out of the room, the small bottle still clenched in his hand. Henry turned back to the fire, pressing his head against the chair’s cloth and feeling sleep steal over him. York’s footsteps seemed to echo in that empty place for a long time, until they could be heard no more.
29
Winter lay hard on the land as York rode back along the river to the Palace of Westminster. Rain beat against his skin until it felt as if he wore a mask. There was no moon or any stars to be seen under a low bank of cloud over the city, so York was forced to walk his horse for five miles, warmed only by simmering anger. Even that could not withstand the bitter cold, so that he arrived drenched and stiff at the royal apartments, his teeth chattering and even his thoughts reduced to drifting lumps of ice in his mind. He reached a crackling fire and stood mute before it, pools forming on the rugs at his feet. Dawn was still some way off and he was weary to the bone, to the point of swaying slightly as he closed his eyes and stretched out his hands to the heat.
Salisbury entered the room as York’s cloak began to steam. The
earl had clearly been summoned from his bed as his hair stood up in tufts of grey and he looked ten years older. Even so, his eyes were sharp as he caught sight of the tall, dark figure staring into the flames as they crackled and huffed. Salisbury knew very well where he had been that night and he ached with the desire to ask. When York turned to him, the man’s eyes were red-rimmed and wild and the questions dried in Salisbury’s throat.
‘What news?’ York asked. His hands had turned bright red and slightly swollen as he held them to the fire. Salisbury found his gaze drawn to the outstretched fingers.
‘Nothing more on how many they have gathered. In this weather, too many are snugged away in tents or behind city walls.’
York scowled at him.
‘We need to know.’
‘I cannot work miracles, Richard,’ Salisbury said, colouring. ‘I have six good men in place in Coventry, three in the city of York, but only two now in the whole of Wales – and no word from them for a month.’
It had taken years to place informers in the major households of their enemies. After the battle of St Albans, Salisbury had set about it with a will, determined to match Derry Brewer in his reach and depth of information. Over time, Salisbury had begun to glimpse the difficulties of establishing such a group – and the quality of his far more experienced opponent. All too often his men had been found murdered, almost always as if they had suffered a terrible accident. Yet some had survived, remaining silent and overlooked, until they’d been able to report a massive force forming in the north.
It made little sense. No one fought in winter. Marching armies could not forage as they went. Rain ruined bows and made men slip in clotted muck, halving the distance they could march each day. Numb hands dropped weapons and entire armies could slip past each other on dark, windy nights and never know how close they’d come.
Despite all that, a dozen powerful lords were all bringing soldiers to the same spot, planting banners in the mud and bitter cold. Worse, one of Salisbury’s men had come in to report recruiters in Wales, with hundreds gathering under the drenched banners of the Tudors. No one ever fought in winter. Only the fact that Henry was a prisoner could have brought them out to march on London, desperate to save the king.
‘Have you heard from your son, Warwick?’ York asked.
Salisbury shook his head, irritated.
‘It’s too early still. It’s one thing to call the men of Kent in high summer. Quite another to bring them out of their villages with Christmas on the way.’
‘London is too far south,’ York muttered, turning back to the fire. ‘Too far for me to keep my eye on what they are doing.’ He saw Salisbury flush as if he had been rebuked and nodded to himself.
It had been Salisbury’s idea to make London their fortress, while the Bills of Attainder were reversed. It had made sense for a time, with so many London men willing to come to their banners, to be trained and equipped. After the savage defence of the Tower by Lord Scales, thousands of London lads had volunteered to join them, from the families in grand houses on Wych Street to lads from the heart of the rookeries. They’d spent all autumn marching through the southern fields beyond the river, learning to use pikes and shields.
York clenched his fists and splayed the fingers wide once again, feeling heat ease the pain as blood returned to them. While he and Salisbury had been building an army, it seemed the queen had been out as well, dripping poison into the ears of men like the Tudor earls. He might even have admired the woman, if she had not been so set against him from the beginning. While Margaret lived, while her son lived, he knew he would never be safe.
York wondered where she was at that moment and whether she had heard of his rise to become heir to the throne. It was a small comfort in the black mood that swamped him. His imagination kept returning to King Henry and the room in the bishop’s palace, dreading the moment when Salisbury would ask.
‘We’ll march,’ York said suddenly into the silence. ‘I won’t wait for them to come to me. We’ll take all but three thousand men north. If they are gathering armies, I want to see them. I want to know how many they have. For all we know, they are waiting for spring and we might catch them unaware. Yes. Better than standing here, for others to decide our fate.’
‘Three thousand can keep order, well enough,’ Salisbury replied. He lifted another pair of logs on to the fire, busying himself with an iron poker.
‘Perhaps they could, but we can’t spare them,’ York said. ‘I won’t leave good soldiers in London. We need a strong force in the path of the Tudors, to change their minds about leaving Wales. My son can settle three thousand around Ludlow to defend the border. He knows the land there. We’ll keep a string of horsemen between us, so that any messages can be carried quickly. Another line to Warwick in Kent, as he brings them north. We do not need London now. The taverns are all dry, anyway.’ York smiled wryly, pleased to see the older man’s expression lighten.
‘I would like to go home,’ York said softly. ‘I have spent too long in the south and I am weary of it. I will be fifty in a few months and I am tired. Do you feel it? I would see my own lands again, even if there is a queen’s army waiting for me there.’
‘I understand. I feel the same, in truth. They’ve lost six thousand men this year. Too many crops have rotted where they lay, without lads to take in the harvest. Bread costs twice the price now, did you know? Beer is twopence a pint, with barley so scarce. They’ve beggared the north. People are starving in some places, all for battles they’ve lost. I think those Gallants have learned the cost of fine promises and a silver badge. They cannot afford another year like this one.’
All the time they had been talking, a single question had shimmered beneath Salisbury’s thoughts. He suspected he knew the answer already, from York’s grim mood, but he chose to speak the words aloud, even so.
‘In King Henry, they have a talisman to gather support, a name to bring men in, who might otherwise spend the winter at their hearths. Did you … find him ailing?’
York sucked his front teeth, his tongue probing a hole that hurt him.
‘He was well enough, when I left him.’ He did not look away from the fire as Salisbury blew air in grumbling irritation.
‘The sickest man in England is still “well enough”? No one would be surprised if Henry passed in his sleep, but you are somehow certain he is well? For God’s sake, Richard! You are the heir to the throne! Will you wait for him to die of old age?’
‘You don’t understand,’ York snapped at him. ‘While he lives, we have some semblance of acting in his name. There are still some, more than some, who will fight with us only because we defend the king. You were there at Ludlow. You saw Trollope lead his Calais men to the king’s side, just as soon as he saw the lion banners! If Henry died, we would be throwing away some part of our armies. Henry alive puts us in the right.’
Salisbury looked at the younger man in bemusement, hearing the lie and not understanding it. He wondered if York even did himself.
‘If Henry had somehow died tonight, as we discussed and feared he might, you would be king. You would be crowned in London tomorrow and you would take up that same lion banner. All the lords and common men who feel such awe for King Henry would kneel to you – and fight for you! Sweet Jesus, I knew it when I saw your scowls.’
Despite his anger, Salisbury looked around the room, checking no servant had entered who might overhear them. His voice dropped to a harsh whisper.
‘You were the one who insisted it could be no other hand. You said you would not allow some thief to break into his room. You said it could not be done in blood. Do you still have the bottle, or did you leave it by his side for his doctors to sniff and recognize?’
Stung by the anger of his friend, York reached sharply into a pouch under his cloak and threw the small bottle into the fire, where it rested unbroken, slowly turning black. They could both hear sizzling begin inside it and a tongue of green flame flicker around the stopper.
�
��He is like a child,’ York said, ‘an innocent. I think he understood what I was going to do and he forgave me for it. It would have been a monstrous thing, to damn my soul for such a boy.’
‘You would be king tonight,’ Salisbury said, bitterly angry. ‘You and I would have secured our futures, our families and our houses for a century. For that, I would damn a thousand souls, my own among them, then sleep like a child after.’
‘Oh, keep your scorn,’ York retorted. ‘This is no game of thrones, but real endings and real blood. I wonder how it is that you would make me king and yet still seek to control my hand. Is it so terrible that I could not murder a child? Do I not know you at all?’
Under York’s searching gaze, Salisbury looked down, breathing out and out, until he was empty.
‘You do know me,’ he said at last. ‘And it is not so terrible. I would have felt the loss if you’d brought me news of his death, not least for love of his father.’ He held up both his hands, palms out and empty. ‘Very well, Richard. I will not ask again. Send Edward to Wales and I will ride north with you, though my old bones complain at the very thought. We’ll find another way that does not come from Henry’s death.’
Margaret looked over her shoulder, her eyes brightening as she caught sight of her son. The little boy rode so proudly, with ambling Scots all around him. The lairds had put him on a horse to keep up with them, though they walked themselves. For the first few miles, Margaret had feared for his safety. Yet the one time he’d slipped, a young man had caught him easily, swooping him back into the saddle, with the boy’s laughter ringing out.
They might have frightened her, those clan warriors that Mary had chosen to come to England. They were not large men, with some notable exceptions. They wore thick beards of red or black or dark brown, sometimes braided into lengths, with charms woven into the hair. They spoke their own strange tongue amongst themselves, though a fair scattering seemed to know French. Very few of them knew English, or at least admitted to it, though they could grin and look aside at each other at the simplest question, breaking into sudden laughter for no reason she could understand.
Wars of the Roses: Trinity (War of the Roses Book 2) Page 33
